CBI to adopt Bihar law to seize homes of corrupt

Patna, Jan 28 (IANS) Impressed with confiscation of the ill-gotten property of corrupt officials in Bihar under a special law to fight corruption, the Central Bureau of Investigation CBI) is set to adopt the legislation soon, officials said Saturday.

The CBI is studying the Bihar government’s Special Courts Act, 2009 that enables it to confiscate the properties of corrupt officials with ease and in a short period.

“The CBI has approached the state government to understand the useful clauses of the act that give power to confiscate (accused’s) property before conviction,” said Bihar Additional Director General (Vigilance) P.K. Thakur.

Thakur said that Bihar’s success in confiscating the ill-gotten property of corrupt officials was lauded by CBI officials, who contacted the state government with a view to adopt the special law.

The Special Courts Act, 2009 allows the confiscation of property of public servants, including bureaucrats, legislators and MPs, while they face trial for corruption charges.

“The CBI is keen to adopt Bihar’s model to confiscate ill-gotten property of corrupt officials, as it is easy and effective,” Thakur told IANS here.

According to CBI officials here, the existing procedure to deal with the attachment of ill-gotten property while the investigations were on, was very lengthy and not easy.

Till date, the Bihar government has confiscated houses of an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Shiv Shankar Verma and a treasury clerk Girish Kumar in Patna.

Proceedings to confiscate properties of some more officials, including former drug controller Y.K. Jaiswal, revenue officer Yogendera Prasad Singh, engineer Srikant Prasad and former director general of police Narayan Mishra, former Rajbhasha Parishad director B.N. Chowdhary, have also been initiated.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar gave his nod for prosecution of 11 officials of various departments Nov 11 last year.

The state government last year put in place the Special Courts Act to confiscate the properties of corrupt officials.

Six special courts, two each in Patna, Bhagalpur and Muzaffarpur, were created by the government with the permission of the Patna High Court for speedy trial of cases involving more than Rs.25 crore.